The clip opens with the credit Dufour family, Fox meat balls. Sitting at the table, Mrs. Marlaine Dufour explains the origins of the dish and her family’s recipes.

00:00-00:20

Well, they come from my mother, but my mother… They come from my grandmother on her father’s side because she worked in the woods a lot when she was young. They’re recipes that she collected and learned to make and that she invented when she was in a bind. So they were passed down in the family.

00:21-00:45

You’ll eat my grandmother’s ragoût de boulettes (meatball stew) or my mother’s and it’ll be very different from the one made by other Saguenay families. Because they adapted it and developed the taste according to what they liked and passed it down. Because when you wanted to eat your grandmother’s stew, you’d call her to find out how to make it. So that she could….So that it was as close to hers as possible.

00:46-01:29

I don’t know why they called it hibou au chou (owl with cabbage), but that’s what it was in our house. Or boulettes de renard (fox meat balls). But that, my grandmother told me it was because the dish was first made with fox. They made ground meatballs with tomato and tomato juice and baked them in the oven all afternoon. They just called it boulettes de renard. Dishes like that. Head cheese that she made and showed us how to make. So many things that we don’t eat as much today but that I keep so the children can learn, too. So that they pass it on because it’s part of our heritage. You know, even if we don’t make them as much, they’re around…they’re still around. They’re the foundation. I think it’s important to keep them.

Every family has its own special recipes that have been faithfully passed down through generations to preserve a heritage of original flavours with names that are sometimes surprising… just like Marlaine Dufour’s fox meat balls and owl with cabbage!